


Divine Intervention

by smithsonianstucky (thelarenttrap)



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Compliant, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Canon Retelling, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Captain America: The First Avenger Compliant, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-13 00:45:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7955515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelarenttrap/pseuds/smithsonianstucky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Do you think the universe fights for souls to be together?</i>
</p>
<p>Fate, Luck, and Death have been playing games since the beginning of time. This one may be the most elaborate they have played yet.</p>
<p>Or the one where two Brooklyn boys are not in charge of their own outcome, but in the hands of greater forces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Divine Intervention

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is something I consider pretty experimental and it was just something fun for me to write as I considered Steve and Bucky's lives and the sadistic coincidences that they include. 
> 
> So many thanks to Emma and the rest of the Fanfic Writer's Network for looking this over and affirming it was readable. You da bomb!

Oh how Luck loved them. Luck loved them more than Luck could remember ever caring for mortals, but perhaps their memory simply did not reach as far back as the beginning anymore. But Luck had seen them meet, grow, expire, rebirth, and love together, Luck had seen them fight tooth and nail, throw themselves on the line, give up everything. The Strong One had even given up his title, the position Fate had aligned for him. Luck could only wonder what could happen from here, what more their companions could possibly have in store for the two of them. Little could be left for these cosmic children…

In the beginning, Death had fixated upon The Strong One. Even if his mind was strong, his body was not and Death wanted his soul. The physically weak were what fueled Death for the difficult takings. More of those would be coming, Death was preparing, as Fate worked their hand to create another great war.

Fate had been constructing the groundwork for the second as soon as the first had ended. It was a gift for Death, the most romantic thing Luck thought they had ever seen one of them do. Through all the years, all of the mortals manipulated by their hands and all of the beginnings and endings, this was the most beautiful gift ever given. It was sadistic in its beauty, a true terror, a repulse.

However, The Strong One was not an easy taking. Through bouts of pneumonia and fever alike he held on. Death was so angered by the refusal of The Strong One to die, they unleashed the scarlet fever. It took the mother of The Strong One, leaving behind an orphan with a Herculean strength to live… and a friend who refused to let him die. The Fierce One was a stubborn protector, a loving caretaker during sickness. The Fierce One was Luck’s way to save such a fragile soul. They knew, when they had caused the encounter between the two in the schoolyard, that The Fierce One could keep The Strong One safe from Death’s grasp. Luck loved them both too much to let The Strong One expire too young.

When the war arrived, Fate did everything in their power to keep The Strong One from entering the army, planting seeds of doubt at every recruitment station. The war may have been a gift for Death, but Fate’s accompanying gift for Luck was this. They drafted The Fierce One into the same regiment that had taken The Strong One ’ s father and Death had laughed gleefully, recognizing the offering that Fate had given him. It was a backhand to Luck, who wept for the loss. They had saved The Strong One again, but it did not come without a price this time. Death saw more though; it was finally a way to kill The Strong One ’s will: to take The Fierce One.

Luck had intervened again though, too in enthralled with the unrequited love of these cosmic children to let the story be over. Luck loved their mortal souls far too much, so they coaxed The Doctor to hear that last conversation between The Strong One and The Fierce One so that he would recognize the strength the small body did not reflect. It worked, and The Doctor recruited The Strong One for his project, a project Fate had already determined would win the war. If Luck simply played their cards right, The Strong One would survive and be reunited with The Fierce One.

An opportunity for success came in the form of The Determined One. Luck simply angled her gaze so as to notice The Strong One. She became the one with the most faith, an essential step should The Strong One truly enter the war, and it succeeded. Together, The Doctor and The Determined One chose The Strong One to receive the serum and Death screamed shrilly in protest. Their easy taking, what should have been the easiest soul, was now the furthest from their reach. In their anger, Death took The Doctor’s life, altering the path for The Strong One. Suddenly, he was not headed to the war front, but a puppet on a stage, useless towards winning the war. The tide began to tip, Death having meddled with Fate’s plan for the mortal’s altercation.

The next thing Luck knew, the 107 th was thrust into a firefight of a violence that the mortals had yet to experience. The weapons were more advanced than had yet existed, a result of Fate leading The Sadistic One to the Asgardian cube. Death expected The Fierce One’s life to be taken, but instead The Sadistic One demanded the soldiers alive. Death was not disheartened however: Prisoners of War rarely made it out alive when they had a say.

Fate was angry with Death however, angry that Death was manipulating their plan for the mortals’ war so as to play their own simple game. Fate decided to select The Fierce One for The Devious One’s project. This, Fate knew, would thwart Death from taking The Fierce One. Death did not know, too focused on the events happening with The Strong One as he mindlessly solicited an airplane ride into enemy territory from The Intellectual One. Death thought they might finally have a chance at The Strong One’s life, but Fate had different plans.

All three of them watched, amazed and awed, as The Strong One and The Fierce One reunited and both escaped, The Strong One succeeding where any other would have failed, releasing the prisoners and escaping with both his and The Fierce One’s lives. Death cried raged tears, both the souls they so dearly desired escaping their grasp once again.

Fate was scared by Death’s outbursts, had never seen Death so fixated upon specific mortals so intently. Fate began to distance themselves from Death, no longer partners in their plans. Luck was scared, as Fate had never removed themselves so completely from Death. What would happen to the mortals should Fate and Death not be playing their game together?

Luck continued to bestow their gifts upon The Fierce One and The Strong One however, insisting upon their love becoming realized and their continued survival. What Luck hadn’t realized however was that The Strong One had become distracted by The Determined One, his love latching onto her instead of its rightful owner. Luck watched as The Fierce One receded, hurt by the obvious affection between The Strong One and The Determined One. Luck wept.

As Luck mourned their mistake in introducing The Determined One, Death began their plan. The Strong One and The Fierce One had become vital in the war, killing the opposition at an extraordinary rate that Fate pushed ever and ever faster. As Fate and Death quarreled, the tension between them heightened and suddenly Luck was watching as Death caused the wall of a train to rip open and The Fierce One to tumble through it. Only Luck’s quick hand kept him from immediately falling, and The Strong One reached, stretched his arm so far, but Luck’s will could not fight that of Death and The Fierce One dropped to the snow hundreds of feet below the tracks.

The unlikely survival of The Fierce One was the final blow between Death and Fate that sealed their status as enemies. It would also solidify the hellscape that would become The Fierce One’s and The Strong One’s lives. When Death became aware of Fate’s play with The Devious One’s earlier experiments, they became enraged. Death forced concepts into The Strong One’s mind that had never existed before: the idea to take his own life.

Fate was more concerned with finishing the war quickly, so as to have fewer lives taken and take back their gift to Death. Fate was not so concerned with saving The Strong One anymore, their play with the two Brooklyn boys already done. Luck watched, trying to thwart the ideas of Death as The Strong One flew an airplane full of bombs across the ocean. The Strong One had fallen for The Determined One and Luck connected their radio, bringing her words to guide him back to the ground safely. Even Luck’s mistake, however, could not thwart the connection between The Strong One and The Fierce One, the sadness so deep at his loss that The Strong One could not be saved by his newer love. Death laughed as the plane crashed into the ocean, The Strong One on board.

Fate, however, was at work. For seventy years, life went on. The mortals finished the war shortly thereafter and Fate threw Death looks that said all of the words they had withheld, every nasty remark about the two whom Death had taken. It was a ploy however, as Luck watched The Fierce One discovered in the snow, his arm amputated and replaced. Now, nameless in the mortal world, The Fierce One had been turned into a machine of Death’s own nature. In fact, Death loved The Fierce One. He brought souls to Death’s door that would seem unobtainable, savagely ending lives (some barely begun), and destroying schemes. Death gloated to Fate about this killer, not knowing whom he was. The Fierce One was not himself anymore, unrecognizable, and Death believed him a gift from the mortals to their unmaker. After all, everyone dies eventually. Death believed that they had finally learned to not fear them.

Fate remained silent, biding their time. Luck worked day in and day out to arrange for The Strong One to be found, thinking an honest funeral better than a burial beneath the ice. Finally, Luck made it true, but the scientists in the Arctic who discovered The Valkyrie came across something unexpected: life.

Luck and Fate cried tears of joy when The Strong One awoke in the facility of The Stoic One. The Strong One lived, which meant The Fierce One could be stopped in his bloody parade. Fate had thus far resisted action, unsure if any mortal force could stop him, but they both had faith that The Strong One was their chance.

It took nearly two years of Fate and Luck working together for The Strong One and The Fierce One to be reunited. Death still did not know the identity of their minion and gleefully watched as The Fierce One fought The Fiery One and The Strong One in the mortals ’ cement city. Death was awaiting both their souls, sure that his incarnation below would prevail.

Luck worked their magic, damaging the goggles and loosening the mask so as to reveal The Fierce One’s identity to The Strong One. When the mask fell off, all three of them held their breaths.

Death screamed when they recognized The Fierce One, The Strong One’s moment of realization coming at the same moment. Death was furious; being cheated of two souls was two too many. Death sent The Fierce One back to take The Strong One’s life, intent upon their mutual demise. If two mortals could be that strong, then they were the only ones who could kill one another.

The fight was terrible, Death’s will for their souls stronger than any force Luck or Fate could manage. Together though, they worked to thwart the vindictive plans. When Death intended for the second bullet to be a kill shot, Luck shook The Fierce One’s arm, unsteady in his subconscious recognition of The Strong One, and the bullet buried itself in muscle. The third bullet could not be stopped however, The Fierce One too sure of his aim and purpose. Fate was the one who loosened the structure of the helicarrier, dropping the heavy metal beam onto The Fierce One so as to bring The Strong One back to his side. Perhaps if he was saved by his friend, then he would recognize… But no, the fight continued, The Fierce One’s memories unreachable.

It was The Strong One who finally broke through, without aid from  n either Fate nor Luck to return The Fierce One to himself. He simply repeated the line, the one that had existed so many years before when Luck had first begun to love them, and them each other. The Fierce One knew then that he loved The Strong One then, that this fight was not his true purpose, and dropped himself into the water after his lifelong friend.

Luck was the one who kept the debris from the falling airship from drowning either of the mortals, guaranteeing them safe passage to the shore. There, The Fierce One left The Strong One. With his uniform sodden with river water and blood, Luck and Fate kept his heart beating, one pump after another, until help arrived.

Death was furious. They began to throw every trick they had at The Strong One and The Enhanced Team, raining terror upon their organization. He created The Intelligence, an entity set to destroy the entire world. Of course, more mortals existed elsewhere, planets upon planets of other beings, but Fate and Luck were so partial to Earth, incredibly in love with their fragile beings who swarmed across its surface. They saved the mortals, losing some of The Enhanced Team, one of the newest, but humanity was saved. It was the cost that had to be paid.

Fate thought Death was done, had admitted defeat, when no new threat to their precious mortals arrived. Days passed without vicious actions, an average number of souls arriving on Death’s doorstep. They silently let each one in, seemingly content with such a normal progression of lives being lost. It was the most relaxed Luck had ever seen Death.

Fate was the one who unearthed the plan, who discovered the seed that Death had planted in the mind of a man. Death wanted to kill all of The Enhanced now—these bringers of safety and life—and knew that only they could be the demise of one another. The genius of Death’s plan, the way in which they so cleverly devised it, entranced Fate and suddenly Luck saw that Fate’s love for Death had never left, but was simply diminished with the perceived loss of The Lovers. Now, it returned, as Fate saw the alignment of the future, saw how cleverly Death intended to take the enhanced souls. It was the genius that so thoroughly entrapped Fate’s love again.

Luck was on their own to thwart this, and thwart it they would. Perhaps Luck’s love for The Strong One and The Fierce One was more plentiful than that of Fate and Death, or perhaps it was the fact that The Strong One and The Fierce One loved each other more than any mortals Luck had ever seen. Whatever the reason, Luck was able to bring them together, The Strong One arriving just before the team of killers that Death brought knocking on the door. Then Luck was faced with the task of turning The Fiery One from foe to friend, rekindling the friendship she had felt so strongly for The Strong One during the great fight in the mortals’ capitol city.

Luck knew what a romantic she was, how she believed in doing right above all else and the icon that The Strong One was to her of that. He saw the real her and in turn, she trusted his judgment. Had love worked in different ways, Luck knew Fate would have made them an unstoppable force in the mortal world. There were so many that complimented The Strong One, but only one that made him whole in return. Luck used the connection between The Fiery One and The Strong One instead to guarantee The Lovers’ safe passage to the cold place where Death’s plan awaited them.

Luck became nervous, unsure how to continue playing their hand correctly. The Lovers must survive, that they knew above all else, or the world could perish. If The Lovers died, then The Enhanced would fragment, taking one another’s lives, leaving Earth unguarded and vulnerable. Death would try to take humanity again should that happen. Luck was the only one who wished to stop that.

Fate delivered The Iron One to the cold country just after The Strong One and The Fierce One arrived. The Iron One was whom Luck feared the most in this game, the one who would be affected the most by the knowledge of what The Fierce One had done. For once, the survival of The Fierce One under the control of The Devious One was playing against Luck.

When Death’s plan played out, it almost worked. Little could diminish The Iron One’s hatred for The Fierce One over taking the lives of his parents. Luck had never considered the repercussions of what Fate had done when deciding to give those souls to Death. In retrospect, Fate had already been falling back in love with Death then, aligning The Iron One to take over for The Intellectual One and creating thousands of new ways to end lives. Although The Iron One had eventually sworn off his killing machines, the damage was done.

Now, The Iron One turned back to their old deeds, intent upon ending not only The Fierce One’s life, but also The Strong One’s. It was not his original intent to take both souls, but Death’s guidance took him down that dark path. Luck watched, terrified, as the battle shook the structure in the cold country, three mortals battling over years past. It was Fate who directed the beam of energy from The Iron One’s hand to The Fierce One’s arm, severing it from his body. It was the wrong choice; Fate had thought that removing The Fierce One from the fight tilted the odds in Death’s favor, but did not understand the depth of the love between The Fierce One and The Strong One.

The latter retaliated and all three watched in frozen horror was he turned from an icon to a nightmare, nearly killing The Iron One. The change of heart at the last moment was only because Death was not ready for The Iron One yet, not ready yet to accept that soul. Death wanted The Iron One to remain in the mortal world and so The Strong One crushed the power source for the Iron One’s suit instead of his cranium.

Luck, Fate, and Death were still frozen in awe as The Strong One helped The Fierce One to his feet and they departed the cold country for a warm one, the one that belonged to The Royal One. They did not tamper, did not persuade. They all watched as The Fierce One made his own decision to return to his synthetic sleep, so as to not cause more harm to his mortal world. The Strong One was upset by this, and Luck almost dabbled, changing The Fierce One’s decision, but Fate silently shook their head and Luck took no action.

It seemed as if the situation was over, but Luck did not trust Death. They would try again.

 


End file.
